The 2011-12 WAC basketball season, per Jason Groves

Jason Groves is bored and we are the lucky recipients via a bevy of player and team predictions.

Three Nevada first-teamers! Brockeith Paine on the third team. Jason's calls should 'invigorate' WAC basketball fans in various locations. He's put the ball in your courts.

PTW does the WAC honors

There are three unanimous choices for our All-WAC First Team:

* Adrian Oliver
* Tai Wesley
* La'Shard Anderson

Take these guys away from their respective teams and, while the wheels wouldn't necessarily come off, their squads would be so much more easier to defend.

Our other two choices:

* Dario Hunt
* Troy Gillenwater

Neither is exactly finishing the regular season on a high note but there are a few games left to turn that direction around. Let's see what the G-Man does tonight although he is apparently still injured.

Here are the other possibilities we considered and they make up the All-WAC Second Team:

* Justin Graham 
* Jeff Ledbetter 
* Olu Ashaolu
* Brockeith Pane
* Bill Amis 

Graham's numbers: 15.5 ppg. (sixth in the league), 5.0 apg., 4.4 rpg., 23 steals and 2/1 assist-to-turnover ratio gave him the greatest case for making the top five.

Ledbetter snuck up on us but his numbers are solid: 15.5 ppg., 47% on treys, 86% on free throws and 3.3 rpg. while second in the WAC in steals.

Ashaolu was generally a double-double and had the least assistance from his teammates in creating operating room.

Pane put up 12.9 ppg., shot 50% and passed for 4.3 apg. and his dribble-drive penetration brought as aspect to his team that no other Aggie could come close to duplicating.

Amis' figures are 14.2 ppg., 7.8 rpg. and 2.2 blocks a contest and he gets the nod over Greg Smith who was too often a no-show or a minimalist contributor. Actually, Zane Johnson (14.7 ppg., 39% shooting on treys) was Amis' closest competition.

Player of the Year: Adrian Oliver, San Jose State

Chris Murray's reasoning influenced this pick: not withstanding the multiple contributions of Tai Wesley, Adrian Oliver simply is the best player.

Coach of the Year: 'The Stache" aka Don Verlin

Hey, what about Don Verlin for Coach of the Year in the WAC? Idaho was picked to finish eighth by both the coaches and media and the Vandals best epitomized the whole being better than the sum of its parts.

It's an impossible task to actually delineate one coach being 'better' than his compatriots (what's the criteria?) but Verlin's group achieved the most with the least (and we're not trying to offer a back-handed compliment).

Of course, Stew Morrill was fine, as usual, at Utah State but he enjoyed four returning starters.

Heck, Hawaii was supposed to be the WAC caboose so Gib Arnold also deserves some love.

Freshman of the year: Deonte Burton

We had early doubts about his stroke but 15.3 points a game (50% overall shooting, 45% on treys), 2.7 assists and 1.6 steals each time out makes him the runaway winner.

We also have some other less-recognized categories:

Marathon Man: Justin Graham at 39.5 minutes game (aided by the large number of OT games by the Spartans)

On the Verge of Breaking Out: Kyle Barone with 13.2 ppg. (63% shooting) and 6.1 rpg. He has the best hands of any big in the conference and needs to use them this summer to both pack down more calories and hoist some iron. 

Provider of the Best Change of Pace: Brady Jardine with his over-the-top athleticness amidst teammates who are much more bound by gravity

It poll time...the poll we've been waiting for

Our eyes have been glassing over at any in-the-last-month mention or appearance of the word poll (we tolerate football but loooove basketball -- that's just how we roll) but PTW just caught a Chris Murray column about a WAC BASKETBALL POLL, plus all-league selections, courtesy of the Sporting News. Go here and savor the coming season, one in which hoops will be far more interesting than football due to the number of teams that have a legitimate chance of winning the tourney.

Jared Eborn's All-WAC picks

Jared Eborn weighs in first with his selections for the WAC creme of the crop in 2009-2010 and, no, we're not going to give any names away -- click on the link:

All-WAC teams
Jared Eborn
Deseret News
March 6, 2010

The official All-WAC basketball team won't be released until sometime Sunday. That doesn't mean I can't make my own version of the awards.

While Utah State might be hands down the best team in the Western Athletic Conference, it's entirely possibly the Aggies won't have a first-team all-conference player.

How is that possible, you ask? Well, Utah State doesn't have a dominant player. They have seven interchangable parts -- eight if you count Stew Morrill -- that make the Aggies' sum far greater than its parts.

Here's my list of All-WAC honorees if it were up to me. Sadly, individual numbers rule the day when picking teams like this. Otherwise, it would be impossible to not include a bundle of Aggies...

Go here for the remainder.